Mousey Movies - Top 5 Disney Movies

Recently I appeared on the Sci-Fi Christian Podcast and discussed my favorite Disney movies with host Matt Anderson. 

The Sci-Fi Christian Podcast discusses spiritual themes in sci-fi and fantasy themed books, movies and tv shows.  It was nominated in the 2011 Podcast Awards. 

You can download the podcast on iTunes or access it from their website http://thescifichristian.com/2012/01/episode-41-top-5-disney-movies/. 

I have to thank Matt for a fun conversation, even though he has never seen my third favorite Disney movie of all time, and it even has a sci-fi theme. 

Dreaming Disney - Skipper Dan

A few years ago a friend who visited the Walt Disney World Resort for the first time with his family.  While he was there on his one day adventure, my wife got a text from him saying he had found my dream job.  He was riding The Jungle Cruise!  And I have to admit that sounds pretty awesome!  I have just enough corn to my personality that I would really enjoy being a skipper even if the guests on my boat did not.  And I personally became interested in all things Jungle Cruise after reading Mouse Tales, because it made me think that the cast members having the most fun are the skippers, even if they just keep going around again and again and again through the never changing jungle.

So it’s only fitting that the king of all musical parody pay tribute to the hapless skippers.  On his 2011 album Alpocalypse, Weird Al Yankovic honors all skippers in the song “Skipper Dan.”

If you are a Disney fan living in Betweenland this is just funny.  Of course the real question is did the combination of satire and truth lead me to give up on The Jungle Cruise dream?

Nope, I’m still Dreaming Disney and hope you are too.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the backside of water.

Dreaming Disney - WDW Today

Years ago I would have to say that I was only a casual Disney fan.  Disney movies were always present and we owned the biggest pile of VHS Disney in our circle of friends.  And I had been to the Walt Disney World not once but twice.  But I really was just your typical easy to manage non-fanatical Disney fan.  Yep I was a pretty normal guy.

Then I decided I needed to up my participation in the planning for a third trip to Walt Disney World.  In that increased participation I moved past www.AllEars.net and decided to try out a planning podcast or two.  On AllEars I found a reference to a podcast called WDW Today and I have not looked back since.     

What I found was a wealth of information that anyone planning a Walt Disney World vacation would need.  I sampled an episode and then downloaded 20 other topics.  Each episode was around 30 minutes or less, making each easily digestible.  And other than the general Listener Question episodes, typically released on Wednesdays, all episodes had a uniting theme.  So, if you wanted to know about hurricanes, they did it.  Segway tours, it’s in the can.  Perhaps you are interested in cult foods especially Dole Whip, yep they’ve been there.  If you want a detailed report on drinking around the world at Epcot, they have done it not once not twice but three times.  With the show reaching towards 1,000 episodes they have covered tons of topics that would help anyone plan their Walt Disney World vacation including the most experienced planners.

The podcast personalities are a mix of five of the best informed Disney Adjacent fans you are going to find.  Len Testa is one of the co-authors of the Unofficial Guide series of Disney travel guidebooks.  Testa’s opinions are typically either backed by statistics or experience having sampled the majority of accommodations and dining locations for the good book.  In addition, it’s his research that the touring plans found in the good book are based on including Lines the mobile outgrowth of touring plans.  Mike Newell turned his Disney fandom into an online streaming music empire in MouseWorld Radio.  Mike Scopa is a long time Walt Disney World visitor, Walt Disney World fan writer and currently blogs at www.AllEars.net.  Host Matt Hochberg is the only member of the team who is a physically Disney Adjacent panelist, and runs Studios Central a website dedicated to convinced us all the Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the best part in Orlando.  Hochberg admits in episode 971 since moving to Orlando he has only gone two weeks without visiting one of the parks.  Yes, I am jealous.  Finally, but not last, the Fabulous Annette Owens is a Disney focused travel agent.  She adds to the panel years of planning countless Disney vacations.  Together there are not many planning questions this group cannot handle.       

So, I listened in preparation of my Walt Disney World vacation several years ago.  I fully intended to quit listening after I returned.  I in fact dropped several podcasts after our return.  Instead, I found myself still downloading three times a week; Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  WDW Today had become part of my podcast diet.  I could not escape it, living out in Between Disney with no trip planned I still had to know more about the parks.  I needed the common sense and fun the hosts provided.  And I was becoming something I did not expect, a Disney enthusiast.  I find that listening helps me plan non-Disney events since much of the common sense can be applied in other family adventures.  I am a better planner because of WDW Today.  I’m sure I am not the only one living Between Disney who can credit, or blame, WDW Today for helping feed a Disney parks obsession.  

Between Books - Windows on Main Street

Chuck Snyder in Windows on Main Street: Discover the Real Stories of the Talented People Featured n the Windows of Main Street U.S.A. provides his readers the significance behind the “businesses” highlighted on windows on Main Street U.S.A in the Disneyland Park and The Magic Kingdom.  Each display window not only helps give the setting a feeling of a working main street but also honors key contributors to the parks.  Each page generally displays three windows and a short biography for an individual honored in the window.  The text also provides a silhouette map of both Main Street U.S.A.s and an index to the location of every honorary window display. 

This is a useful but short book.  I have used it as a quick resource several times to determine if a Disney contributor has been included in the main street displays.  It is only 25 pages long with index and introduction.  This leaves around 15 pages of windows and biographies, so the text is not exhaustive on all windows.  It really only highlights several windows without digging into all of them.  And for a figure like Marc Davis who has a window in both parks the book only shows his Disneyland window while his Walt Disney World window is very different and shared with other contributors including Claude Coats.  This book is a quick and fun read, but I would love to have a more exhaustive examination of these honors.  However, it does still make a informative yet relatively cost effective memento from the parks. 

Mousey Movies - Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a Mousey Movie…there I said it.   Was it produced by a Disney studio?  Nope!  Is it based on Disney park or story material?  Nope!   Were the other three installments mousey?  Not really!  Not every Mousey Movie gets produced by the House of Mouse my friends.  Regardless of its origins, this Tom Cruise led Paramount Pictures blockbuster has plenty for Disney fans to enjoy: 

·     Brad Bird: It all starts with director Brad Bird.  Bird is a well established animator and director of animated films.  He both wrote and directed Pixar’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  And Ghost Protocol has a fast paced action packed feel that would be very familiar to fans of The Incredibles.  He is clearly someone that Disney fans know and appreciate.  Ghost Protocol is his first live action picture and it’s a success.  Bird identifies with his animation and Pixar past as can be seen in his twitter name @BradBirdA113.  A113 is a classroom at CalArts where many Pixar staff were schooled.  A113 can be found in every Pixar movie as an easter egg.  Bird has also used A113 in non-Disney projects including this one.  A113 is used as both a code name and most strikingly on a prop that dominates the movie screen.  With Bird’s fingerprints this movie has a mousey feel.      

·     Jeremy Renner: Marvel is slowly but surely becoming more and more mousey as this relatively new addition gains prominence with Disney fans.  Renner plays William Brandt an analyst that gets added to Ethan Hunt’s (Cruise) Impossible Mission Force (IMF) Team. Renner also plays Hawkeye in the Marvel movies leading up to The Avengers.  And we have already seen Renner as Hawkeye in Thor, giving us two of the best minutes of that superhero film.  And I’m not even a Hawkeye guy. 

·     Michael Giacchino:  Mr. Giacchino is there nothing you can’t score?  Giacchino also scored Mission: Impossible III.  But for us Disney fans he is the current go to musical guy with The Incredibles, Sky High, Ratatouille, Up, Cars 2 and the future John Carter all within his credits.  That impressive list does not even include his ABC television productions.  And we cannot overlook the Disneyland version of Space Mountain’s score which may be my all-time favorite of his work.

·     J.J. Abrams: I have never watched Lost or Alias but these Abrams’ productions have been hits for ABC.  Abrams directed Mission: Impossible III and was a co-producer on this offering.  Between Brad Bird and Abrams, this staff was very familiar with Giacchino who has frequently collaborated with them.  Between these three creative forces Ghost Protocol really is a mousey party.    

·     Laminar Fountains:  What is it with me and jumping water?  In one scene the IMF attends a party at the home of an Indian telecommunications giant.  What does this rich gentleman decorate with….laminar fountains of course!  It just proves, you can bring a piece of Epcot home with you for the right price.  Or at least build a piece of Epcot.  I wonder what the Between family would think if we added this water feature to the living room!    

·     BMW i8: I’m not a car guy, in fact some of you may be laughing thinking about me as a car guy.  I’m not a Tron guy, and now more of you are laughing.  But the BMW i8, a hybrid concept car, needs to be taken out of Ghost Protocol and dropped into the Tron franchise. 

BMW i8

      As Ethan Hunt drives through the streets of Mumbai in this set of wheels I kept looking for it to be trailed by a light wall.  There needs to be a law that you can only drive the i8 driving a glowing jumpsuit. 

It’s true, not every Mousey Movie comes from the House of Mouse.  Out here in Between Disney we have look everywhere to find our connections back to Disney.  And with a movie like Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol that can be pretty easy to do.   

Between Books – Walt Disney: Creator of Magical Worlds

Walt Disney: Creator of Magical Worlds by Charnan Simon introduces children to the life, work and legacy of Walt Disney.  The book provides a survey of Disney’s life at a child’s reading level.  All of the significant periods of Disney’s creative career are included.  Topics addressed include Disney’s childhood, adolescence the development of the Walt Disney Brothers Studio, animated features, live action productions, television and finally theme parks.  The text is filled with pictures from throughout Walt Disney’s career.  Additionally there are information boxes that provide young readers with basic information about events like World War II.  This biography is part of a series called “Community Builders” which includes biographies on Thomas Jefferson and William Boeing.

As an adult, this book is a very straight forward biography of Walt Disney.  It is written to a reading level appropriate to children with pictures to help connect them to the text.  I was impressed with the scope of the biography including sentences about topics like the studio during World War II and Roy O. Disney’s relationship with his brother.  I was very surprised by the scope of a book that is under 50 pages.  The text is filled with pictures and an adult can read it very quickly.  The only misstep I found is a picture labeled as Walt and Roy, which the “Roy” figure seems to lack the Disney nose and appears to be younger than Walt.  But I was not able to find a copy of the picture online where I could identify if the subject was in fact not Roy O. Disney.

As an adult, I couldn’t be the final word on this book.  I slid my copy over to our junior reviewer.  Overall she enjoyed it.  It was about a fifteen minute read for our reviewer.  It can probably be handled by a young reader from third grade on up, and especially any younger reader in chapter books.  Our reviewer thought the pictures of vintage Disneyland were cool.  And she was shocked that every project that Walt Disney undertook was not a success.  She instantly connected Disney’s life to Meet the Robinsons and yelled out “Keep moving forward!”

Overall Walt Disney: Creator of Magical Worlds is a readable and fact filled biography for kids.  The text is full of pictures and historical context that help kids to better understand Walt Disney’s world.  It provides a good introduction to the historical life of Walt Disney for young readers. 

Disney Movie Top 5

Currently I am prepping for my first ever podcast appearance on the Sci-Fi Christian Podcast.

The topic is Top Five Disney movies.  I have been making my own list but I would also love to hear from you.

What are your top five Pixar movies and top five non-Pixar Disney movies including live action.

Thanks for the feedback!  AI will update once it's recorded and posted.